Piaget and Metalinguistics: a Developmental Overview
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DOCI!lElls RESO!!E ED 181 441 CS 005 226 AUTHOR. Van Kleeck, Anne TITLE- Piaget and Metalinguistics: A Developmental Overview. POD DATE Feb 80 NOTE 34p.: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Interdisciplinary OAP-OSC Conference on Piagetian Theory and the Helping Professions (10th, Los Angeles, CA, February 1-2, 1980) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Child Language: Cognitive Processes: *Concept 'Formation: *Developmental Stages:. Elementary Education: *Language Development: Language Skills; Linguistics: Preschool Education IDENTIFIERS *Metalinguistics: Piaget (Jean) ABSTRACT This paper integrates a recent' conceptual shift in riddle childhood language acquisition research--the study of metalinguistic development--with a Piagetian perspective on cognitive development to propose a theoretical framework froa which to consider langpage development during this period. The paper first defines metalingui stics and then uses a Piagetian framework to distinguish between the reasoning abilities of the preoperational and the cncrete operational child.. It then discusses some general cognitive skills underlying all the various manifestations of metalinguistic awareness. It suggests that the metalinguistic skills that emerge during the preoperational stage reflect the child's focus and abilities during this period and that changes in reasoning that emerge with the onset of concrete operations result in success on more complex metalinguistic tasks. Developmental changes in children's performance on the+ diverse sht of Skills considered metalinguistic in nature are cited as evidence in support of these claims. (FL) Piaget and metalinguistics: A developmental overview Anne Van Kleedk University of Texas at Austin Paper presented at the Tenth Annual International Interdisciplinary UAP- USC Conference on Piagetian Theory and the Helping Professions, Los Angeles, February 1 and 2, 1980. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Carla Buford, Stephanie Jasuta, David Hakes,'Laurie Newton, and Alice Richardson for their very helpful comments on the ideas • presented in this paper. Piagét•and Metalinguisticst A Developmental Overview Anhe Van Kleeck 'University of Texas at Austin. Researchers in language acquisition freely admit the very scattered nature of information available on development during.the middle childhood years. They are saying, in effect, that as a field we lack a general framework for concept- ualizing development during this period. This paper integrates a recent concep- tual shift in Middle childhood language acquisition research--the study of meta- linguistic development-'with a Piagetian perspective on cognitive development to propose a theoretical framework from which to consider language development' during this period. Language development during this period of middle childhood may be thought of in teens of two qualitatively different achievements (after bakes, Evans, & 'runmer, in press); (1) the continued development of primary linguistic skills, i.e., understanding and producing longer and more complex sentences, and (2) the emergence of metalinguistit skills, the ability to consciously= reflect pon • the nature and properties of'language. This second aspect of language develop- ment--that of burgèoning metalinguistic awareness--is the focus of this discussion paper. ' The discussion begins by defining metalinguistics. Next, using a Piagetian framework to distinguish between the reasoning abilities of the preoperational and the concrete operational child, some very general cognitive skills under- lying all the various manifestations of metalinguistic awareness are discussed. It,is suggested that the metalinguistic skills which emerge during the preoper- ational stage reflect the child's focus and abilities during this period. The changes in reasoning that emerge with the onset of concrete operations re- suit in success on more complex metalinguistic tasks. Developmental changes in children's performance-on the diversé,set of skills considered metalinguistic in nature are cited as•evidence in suppot;t of these claims. Metalinguistics Defined The. distinction between primary linguistic and metalinguistic skills was best stated by Cazden (1976)2 It is intuitively obvious to us as language users that when either speaking or listening, our focal attention is not on speech sounds, nor even on larger units such as words or syntactic patterns. Our focal atten- tion is on the meaning, the intention, of what we or someone else is trying to say. the language forms are themselves transparent; we hear through them to the intended meaning. As the Duchess rightly says in Alice in Wonderland, "and the moral of that is--take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves." However, it is an important aspect of our unique capacities as human jbeines that we can not only act, but reflect back upon our actions; not only learn and use language, but treat it as an object of analysts and ob- servation in its own right. Meta-linguistic awareness, the ability to make language forms opaque and attend to them in and for themselves, is a special kind of language performance, one which makes special cognitive demands, and seems to be less easily and less universally acquired than the language performance of speaking and listening (p. 603). Cazden uses the transparent versus opaque metaphor to capture the distinc- tion between primary linguistic and metalinguistic skills. Various other ways of conceptualizing the differences between these two aspects of linguistic skill have been. offered, all of which offer clarity to the distinction. some suggest that primary linguistic skills are unconsciously used, i.e., that language users are generally unaware of the linguistic processing by which they give meaning to messages. This is contrastéd with a (fore' conscious awareness characteristic of metalinguistic'skill,§,-.whereby one focuses attention upon the actual form of the linguistic message (Hirsh-Fasek,'; Cleitman, & Gleitman, 1978; ::lobin, 1978). Read (1978) likens primary linguistic skill (speaking and listening) to knowing something and metalinguistic skill tb knowing that one knows it. Others have spoken of linguistic skill as implicit knowledge and metalinguistic skill as explicit reflectins and.manipulations of language (Levelt, Sinclair, & Jarvella, 1978). Franklin (1979) discusses primary linguistic skills as performance-in- context, where language is "readfly conceptualized in pragmatic, means-end terms" (p. 199). Thin contrast:; with reflective performance, wherein the linguistic medium "that ordinarily has the status of instrumentality or means to an end then assumes a different character= it is disembedded from the context of ongoing, action and becomes an 'object' which can be inspected, operated upon, related to other 'objects,' and so forth" (p. 199). In general then, metalinguistic awareness is manifested when language temporarily becomes the object of thought rather than functioning, as it does in most ongoing discourse, as a vehicle for the transmission of thought. Cognitive Strategies Underlying Metalinguistic Skills Since Chonsky's publication of Language and Mind in 1968 in which he suggested that linguists should also be cognitive psychologists, language dev- elopment research has evidenced a concerted effort to determine cognitive cor- relates and determinants of language acquisition, pioneered by the work of !loom (1970. 1973). From these, efforts ha$ arisen general notion that certain aspects of cognitive development appear to be necessary, although not sufficient, pre- requisites for certain aspects, of linguistic development. To date, this research has focused mainly bn the earliest stages'of language development. Attempts have been made to tie early linguistic accomplishments with the cognitive achievements accrued during the'sentorimotor period of development in infancy. With a few notable exceptions (e.g., Ingram, 4975, 1976; Sinclair fc Ferreiro, 1970; Tremaine, 1975), there has been little effort to determine correspondences between cognitive and linguistic advances in later stages of development. Indeed, Furth (1969) suggested that to attempt to do so would be to misconstrue the nature of language, with'its primary purpose as a tool for communication. As children learn more about the, shared linguistic form of their particular linguistic community, their language becomes better suited to the purpose of communication and simultaneously decreases in.its capacity to directly reflect underlying cognitive structure., This caution is only necessary if one continues to search for a direct corre:.pondence between increasing cognitive knowledge and learning to map that knowledge linguistically, i.e., being able to semantically represent what is corn.ltively known. !'here are undoubtedly other ways that cognitive growth can Influence linguisti.e advances besides being reflected in the semantic content. of language.. Indeed, recent work relating to the pragmatic aspect of language development has sought to establish some of these less direct correspondences. :or example, Bates and 'her colleagues (Bates, (',amaioni, & Volterra, 1975) found that a child's attainment of the ability to invent new means to familiar ends which occurs in sensorimotor Stage 5 was a cognitive prerequisite for gestural performatives. 'words were used in the same performative sequences in Stage 6. It is not that the children talked about means/ènd relationships, but rather that trey began to use language,